1. Field of the Disclosure
The present invention relates to a method for removal of organic pollutants (OPs) by electrocatalysis.
2. Description of Related Art
In recent years, anti-pollution electrocatalysis and electrical-catalyzed membrane-separation for water treatment has been developed. Techniques to solve fundamental problems such as energy, resource and environment problems have been investigated.
U.S. 2012/0090988 A1 is related to anti-pollution electrocatalysis composite membrane and membrane reactor. The electrocatalytic composite membrane consists of a substrate and catalytic coating and the membrane reactor provides a trans-membrane pressure as the membrane separation power generated by a pump. The electrocatalytic composite membrane as anode and an auxiliary electrode as cathode are connected to a direct current regulated power supply separately by conducting wires so that an electrolysis apparatus is formed to degrade the pollutant attached on the surface and in the pores of the membrane by electrocatalytic oxidation. The direct current regulated power supply provides 0-30 V of supply voltage and 0-10 A of current.
CN101104537A relates to electrocatalysis using a separation film for a water treatment device. The separation membrane divides internal space of shell into dope space and filtration space. The dope space has raw water inlet and dope outlet and a net-like conductor. The separation membrane and net-like conductor are separately connected with constant current power supply to form electron emission area and electron receiving area. The current adjusting scope of the constant current power supply is between 0 and 50 A, the input pressure voltage is 220 V, and the output voltage is 24 or 12 V. This approach only requires low voltages.
Development of a more effective means of cleaning water by removing organic pollutants by electrocatalysis is essential. Therefore, the present invention applies porous silica supported sol-gel coated platinum and titanium catalysts in which the porous support silica are synthesized from a rice husk material. Due to employment of a glass capillary microreactor, catalytic activity is enhanced by electrokinetic mobility of the target analytes which does not require physical pumps and shortens the time required for removal. The use of rice husk as support for platinum (RHA-Pt) and titanium (RHA-Ti) catalysts for removal of organic pollutants in a glass capillary microreactor has not been previously reported.